Safer Streets along the Basingstoke Canal in Woking

Visitors to the Basingstoke Canal in Woking may have noticed a few changes to the area in recent weeks after Woking’s Safer Neighbourhood team joined forces with the local community to improve feelings of safety in the area.

The 13-mile stretch of canal running through Woking, a much-loved local beauty spot popular with dog-walkers and joggers, has been cleared of overgrown shrubbery and has seen the installation of new CCTV cameras which will cover the towpath.

The extra safety measures are being put in place after a number of reports of indecent exposures and suspicious incidents, particularly against women and girls, which occurred along the canal path since 2019. In response to the reports, local neighbourhood officers commissioned an in-depth analysis of the area.

The analysis highlighted several geographical issues which were helping to facilitate the offences, including overgrown shrubbery which isolated some areas of the path and a lack of CCTV which meant that investigating the offences was difficult.

A project to tackle the issues was set up in 2021, which resulted in an application for Safer Streets funding.

Safer Streets funding from the Home Office provides money for police forces around the country to tackle local crime with a focus on tangible changes to the environment that reduce opportunities to commit offences and deter offenders. In 2021, bids for Safer Streets funding were welcomed for projects with a particular focus on preventing violence against women and girls.

In October last year, the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner Lisa Townsend secured £175,000 of funding from the Home Office’s Safer Streets fund to help improve the safety of women and girls in Woking.

We are using the funding to:

• Install CCTV cameras covering the canal path
• Cut back overgrown shrubbery to allow people to safely pass each other along the canal path and improve visibility
• Remove graffiti along the canal to discourage anti-social behaviour and improve the overall feeling of safety in the area
• Invest in electronic bikes for officers and members of the Canal Watch to use in order to patrol the path more quickly and effectively.

We also launched a communications campaign which aimed to: improve feelings of safety for canal users, in particular women and girls; arm the community with the knowledge of what to do if they witness or are a victim of indecent exposure or suspicious behaviour; educate men, boys and bystanders about how to call out violence against women and girls and lastly, deter potential offenders by publicising the project and police work.

Campaign activity

The Do the Right Thing campaign encourages men and boys to recognise sexual harassment and misogynistic behaviour and give them the confidence and skills to safely call it out when they witness it. The campaign, which was originally created by the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner, was aired in local cinemas and targeted to men and boys in the Woking area via Sky advertising.